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Horrid   Listen
adjective
Horrid  adj.  
1.
Rough; rugged; bristling. (Archaic) "Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn."
2.
Fitted to excite horror; dreadful; hideous; shocking; hence, very offensive. "Not in the legions Of horrid hell." "The horrid things they say."
Synonyms: Frightful; hideous; alarming; shocking; dreadful; awful; terrific; horrible; abominable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Horrid" Quotes from Famous Books



... the twinkling of an eye she was in the midst of us. At this moment Stofolus's rifle exploded in his hand, and Kleinboy, whom I had ordered to stand ready by me, danced about like a duck in a gale of wind. The lioness sprang upon Colesberg, and fearfully lacerated his ribs and haunches with her horrid teeth and claws; the worst wound was on his haunch, which exhibited a sickening, yawning gash, more than twelve inches long, almost laying bare the very bone. I was very cool and steady, and did not feel in the least degree nervous, having fortunately great confidence ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... he thinks he's been barely fulfilling his duty 1770 To interpret 'twixt men and their own sense of beauty. And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, To make his kind happy as he was himself, He finds he's been guilty of horrid offences In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; He's been ob and subjective, what Kettle calls Pot, Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, You have done this, says one judge; done that, says another; You should have done this, grumbles one; that, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Slaves.—Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, says, "There was a project on foot to sell some of the most eminent" (of the masters of colleges, doctors in divinity, &c.) "to the Turks for slaves; and a considerable progress was made in that horrid purpose." And, writing of Dr. Ed. Layfield, under the head of "London Cathedrals," Walker again says, that "at last, in the company of others, he was clapt on shipboard under hatches;" and that "they were threatened to be sold slaves to the Algerines, or to some of our own plantations." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various

... do it, Annie—we had better do it," here sobbed Phyllis. "If this was found out by Mrs. Willis we might be expelled—we might, indeed; and that horrid woman is sure to tell ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... all probability is most like to go to heaven, no matter what destruction he makes in his way, if he does but attain his end; for nothing is a crime that is too great to be punished; and when it is once arrived at that perfection, the most horrid actions in the world become the most admired and renowned. Birds that build highest are most safe; and he that can advance himself above the envy or reach of his inferiors is secure against the malice and assaults ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... of flame swept across the entire dell, and the united crash of a hundred guns seemed to rend the very earth. The surrounding cliffs reverberated and multiplied the horrid din, while, led by Jack, cheer followed cheer, or rather howls and yells filled the air, and kept awake the ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... convict such diabolical incendiaries before the court of criminal judicature; and the inhabitants were called upon by that duty which every man owed to society, as well as to his own individual interest, to use every means in their power to discover the perpetrators of such horrid mischief, which in its extent, involved ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... horrid serpent into the deep sea which surrounds all lands, and there the creature grew so fast that when he stretched himself one day he encircled all the earth, and held his own tail fast in his mouth. And sometimes he grew angry to think ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... travelled, they thought, one hundred leagues along these canyons, with the "river bluffs on the opposite shore never more than a mile" from them.* Thus they evidently did not see the Grand Canyon at its widest part. By April 10th they arrived "where the river emerges from these horrid mountains, which so cage it up as to deprive all human beings of the ability to descend to its banks and make use of its waters. No mortal has the power of describing the pleasure I felt when I could once more reach the banks of the river." They had suffered for food on this journey, but ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... new in the world, never anything quite new—not even the soul of a baby; and so I am not prepared to entertain the whim that a bird was one of his remote incarnations; still, in sweep of wing, quickness of eye, and natural sweet strength of song he is not unlike a super-bird—which is a horrid image. And that reminds me: This, after all, is a foreword to Green Mansions—the romance of the bird-girl Rima—a story actual yet fantastic, which immortalizes, I think, as passionate a love of all beautiful things ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... went the woods about them grew clamorous with horrid noises. All the evil beasts of the world seemed abroad that night in the forests of Machecoul. Presently they issued forth into a more open space. The greyish dark of the turf beneath their feet spread further off. The black blank ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... 'Horrid little beast! Then they'll joggle about inside him and blow up, and serve him right.... Oh, Dick! ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... be ill; cannot be good:—if ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion, Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, And make my seated heart knock at my ribs Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man, that function ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... overthrew; Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints, Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb] Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints, 60 And finds her prior vision but portrayed In feeble colours, when the eye—from the Alp Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp Nods to the storm—dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, Nearer and nearer ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... Adieu! And o'er the glimmering rocks like lightning flew. He followed, and still heard at distance swell The lessening echoes of that mournful shell. 110 It ceased at once; and now he heard no more Than the sea's murmur dying on the shore. Olola!—ha! his sister had that name! Oh, horrid fancies! shake not thus his frame! All night he wandered by the desert main, To catch the melancholy sounds again. No torches blaze in Penco's castled hall That echoed to the midnight festival. The weary soldiers by their toils oppressed, Had now retired to silence and to rest. 120 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... Michikamau lay just beyond the ridge. Now I was on its very shores—the shores of the lake that we had so longed to reach. How well I remembered those weary wind-bound days, and the awful weeks that followed. It was like the recollection of a horrid dream—his dear, wan face, our kiss and embrace, my going forth into the storm and the eternity of horrors that was crowded into days. Pete, I think, understood, for he bad heard the story. He stood for a moment in silence, then he fashioned his hat brim into a cup, and dipping ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... mother, laughing; 'well enough to break your neck on that horrid, jigging, little pony. If Garry wants to see you alive he'd ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... measured himself both in the meeting-houses and in the streets against the local preachers, and, according to his own following, with no small success. There was a covered skittle-ground attached to this house in which, to the horrid scandal of church and chapel, Sunday dances were sometimes held. A certain fastidious pride, and no doubt a certain conscience towards Reuben, kept David from experimenting in these performances, which were ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... roar, the fierce wolf's savage howl, The horrid hissing of the scaly snake, The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, The crow's ill-boding croak, the hollow moan Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... lane became her fortified retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie to Middleton street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the palest ink, always with ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... Lady Lucy,—It's horrid that you are tired and depressed. I wish I could come and cheer you up. Politics are a cursed trade. But never mind, Oliver is safely in, and as soon as the Government is formed, I will come to Tallyn, and we will laugh at these woes. I can't write ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rose at length. She seemed to smile upon the horrid picture that lay below at the deserted camp; but we stayed no longer to contemplate it. Leading our oxen out of their cache, we struck out into the open plain, in a direction as nearly south as I could guide myself. I looked northward ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... beautiful than any religion," he resumed presently. "They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. Do you like my ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... He said he never saw such a crabbed old thing. Oh, she's horrid. I don't like to ride ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... "Nothing is impossible," replied she; "though I think the King would scarcely dare to give such a scandal. Besides, happily, Lebel, to quiet his conscience, told the King that the beautiful Dorothee's lover is infected with a horrid disease;" and, added he, "Your Majesty would not get rid of that as you have done of the scrofula." This was quite enough to keep the ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... learn," Ryan said pettishly. "You always get your own way, Terence. It was so at Athlone: you first of all began by asking my opinion, and then carried out things exactly as you proposed, yourself. Learning the language is a horrid nuisance, but I see that ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... too true, my lady—the Lord have mercy upon us all. It seems too horrid for belief, but it is true. As she lay asleep there, four hours ago, in her own house, surrounded by her own servants, some monster in human form stabbed her through the heart—through the heart, my lady—Dr. Dane says one ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... safest chaperonage—good heavens! would not Miss Spight's jealous green eyes, that were certain to pick out the tiniest blot in her fellow man or woman, and Lady Dasher's stately, albeit melancholy presence, satisfy you? Thus, the "convenances," that horrid Anglo-French pseudonym, of the still more horrible bugbear "society," had no cause to consider themselves neglected and find an excuse for taking umbrage. From this point, our acquaintanceship naturally and gradually ripened. We got intimate: it was our fate, I ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... "How horrid, dark, and wild, and drear, Doth this gaping gulf appear! It seems the hue of hell to wear. The bellowing thunder bursts yon clouds, The moon with blood has stained her light! What forms are those in misty shrouds, That stalk before my sight? And now, hush! ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... my dear, from those horrid barracks!" she cried. "I am so glad! But why didn't you send word you were coming, that I might have been at home to meet you? But it is just like you to keep the matter a perfect secret and give me no chance ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... grandpapa, and pretend I had forgotten he was coming? That would be the best way to treat him; the way to show him that I am not the miserable slave he thinks me. Why can I, who know so well how to manage all other men, never manage the one man whose love I want? That horrid old man was right—he does not want me—he never did. Oh, if I only could be proud, and pretend I do not care! But I can't, I can't—there is always this miserable sickening pain at my heart for him, and he knows it. I have let him ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... I am doing would be horrid if I didn't know all about him," and then Joan tossed about. "Some day—it will be such a lark to tell them—and think of his surprise when he—knows! I'll see him with all barriers down next winter," for at this time Joan had written ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... can be so rude as to sit there in my presence over his stupid perch! Smoking those horrid cigars, too! How selfish ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... himself too good to consult with another doctor, and a lady at that, merely because she doesn't happen to be allopathist, he can go along! I never heard of anything so conceited, so disgustingly mean, in my life. No, Grace! Why, it's horrid!" She was silent, and then, "Why, of course," she added, "if he comes, I shall have to see him. I look like a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... earnestness than linguistic perfection; and he rejoiced to see that instantly she caught at her one chance of plausibly accounting for her presence at Bemerside, and of effecting a rescue from this horrid situation. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... shortly follows, no shade of palliation can be given. He acted out of mere delight in tyranny and cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited from Sycorax his mother. Armed now with that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thought of being master of that horrid isle, he panted for a chance to prove his potency upon the first specimen of humanity which should fall ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... you, that from the time the abolition societies aroused the latent anti-slavery spirit of the North until now, nothing but evil has come of the excitement and discussion. It has spread a horrid influence far and wide; it has for years distilled, and is now distilling its poison and venom all over ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... kind to me," the girl continued, "just as nice as Sir Wingrave was horrid. I suppose it was because they came on that day, but I have always connected him somehow with this mysterious relation of mine. Mr. Aynesworth didn't help ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ay,' said Vivien, 'that were likely too. What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale And of the horrid foulness that he wrought, The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ, Or some black wether of St Satan's fold. What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, Among the knightly brasses of the graves, And by the cold Hic Jacets ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... for breath. I had heard of Music Halls. A stout lady had denounced them across our dinner table on one occasion—fixing the while a steely eye upon her husband, who sat opposite and seemed uncomfortable—as low, horrid places, where people smoked and drank, and wore short skirts, and had added an opinion that they ought to be put down by the police—whether the skirts or the halls she did not explain. I also recollected that our charwoman, whose son had lately left London for ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... heart full of tumult. Directly she was safely indoors she burst out crying, and said, "I do not like London: it is a horrid, dreadful, ugly place, and no beautiful things at all; and, oh, I do want to ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... "How did you find it all out? Did the child tell?—the horrid little—but of course she did. And then you set on and watched me! That was a nice trick for one lady to ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... of these lizards are small, and set deep in a bony socket, but I judged them to be vulnerable, and it was upon the eyes of the beast that I made my attack. The decks were slippery with the horrid slime of them. The crew surged about in their battling, and, moreover, constantly offered themselves as a rampart before me by reason of Tob, the captain's threats. But I gave a few shrewd progues with the lance to show that I did not choose ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... yet she must keep it in her own very bed-room. And what should she say about the box now to Miss Macnulty, who sat by her side, stiff and scornful, offering her smelling-bottles, but not offering her sympathy? "My dear," she said at last, "that horrid man ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... see that he was nearly bursting with suppressed laughter. He kept on saying, under his breath, "what a joke this is! What a capital joke! How they'll all laugh when I tell them." Just as if it was the funniest thing in the world to have a Snake coiled up on one's body—when the horrid thing might bite one with its poisonous ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... says Peter Bligh, drawing back from the pond as from some horrid pit. "Snakes I have seen, nateral and unnateral, but them yonder give ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... were such as nought Could yield but my unhappy case; I've been of thousand devils caught, And thrust into that horrid place Where reign dismay, despair, disgrace; Furies with iron fangs were there, To torture that accursed race Doom'd to ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... nice that you couldn't believe she was so horrid!" Pixie had declared once in her earlier years, and unfortunately there was still too much truth in ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... the next twelve months. Considering that the average lower-class Persian puts in a good share of this twelve months in the unprofitable process of scratching himself, one would think it must be an immense relief for him to cast away these old habiliments with all their horrid load of filth and vermin, and don a clean, new outfit; but the new ones soon get as thickly tenanted as the old; and many even put the new garments on over certain of the old ones, caring nothing for comfort and cleanliness, and everything for appearance. The Persian New Year's holiday ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... horrid meals at college— Not what you're accustomed to. It is hard, this quest for knowledge, But ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... prisoners. I shrugged my shoulders; my indifference but exasperated her. Then she thought to wound me by uttering something disgraceful concerning my mother, whom she had often seen here on a visit to me. Ah, how horrid! I acknowledge, stupid as this attack was, she hurt me. La Louve saw it, and triumphed. That night I went to make an inspection in the sleeping apartment; I reached the bed of La Louve, who was to be put in the cell next ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... their feet, seize their arms, and rush on to meet their foes. It was thus with the Blackfoot braves. Hand to hand, and foot to foot, they met their assailants; brave was opposed to brave; and the horrid clash of the war-club and the murderous death-grapple succeeded each other. Even if I could describe the horrors of such a scene, it would not be right to do so. As I was gazing on the conflict, I suddenly received a blow that struck ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... had ceas'd, the Phantoms fled, Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread. And even when the dream of night Renews the vision to my sight, Cold sweat-damps gather on my limbs, My Ears throb hot, my eye-balls start, My Brain with horrid tumult swims, Wild is the Tempest of my Heart; And my thick and struggling breath Imitates the toil of Death! No uglier agony confounds The Soldier on the war-field spread, When all foredone with toil and wounds Death-like he dozes among heaps ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... it was a horrid thing, and pray'd them to forbear To take up arms against their king, who was the Lawful Heir, Yet like distracted men they run to cast their lives away, And we their Widdowes are undone; this is a ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... be maintained; we were pressed upon on all sides, and with such an inconceivable clatter and confusion of tongues, that the bellowing of cattle would have been comparatively musical to our ears; however, to do them justice, notwithstanding this horrid din, they did not make the least attempt upon our persons or property. It was noticed that the King himself gave away several small pieces of iron to certain individuals, probably an act of policy, which, by leading others to expect a similar token of royal favour, would restrain ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... have been writing something about Sir Maurice, which you shall hear whenever you are not in this horrid temper.' ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... done him no harm! And, as if that were not enough, he lets the infected peasants into the kitchen, and now they are here again! It is all his fault! Be off at once! Discharge him, discharge him! (To SIMON.) And you, horrid peasant, if you dare to have rows in my house again, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of Ireland, but is associated with pleasure in their minds by the festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people, who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need be sought from the prisons or the galleys. And yet the people here are altogether better than in England. . . . The peasants, though cruel, are generally docile, and of the strongest ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... great counts and dukes around them. Castles were built of huge strength, and served as nests of plunderers, who preyed on travellers and made war on each other, grievously tormenting one another's "villeins"—as the peasants were termed. Men could travel nowhere in safety, and horrid ferocity and misery prevailed. The first three kings were good and pious men, but too weak to deal with their ruffian nobles. Robert, called the Pious, was extremely devout, but weak. He became embroiled with the Pope on account of having married ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Did weigh, and others treble; It drifted, dealing slaughter, And blood ran out like water, Ran recking, red and horrid, From battered cheek and forehead; But, though so rudely greeted, ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... the wall, and every square in the carpet, was as well known to each of them as their own bedrooms. Nevertheless they at once felt that they were strangers there. The furniture was for the most part the same, yet the place had been metamorphosed. A new sofa had been introduced, and horrid chintz affair, most unprelatical and almost irreligious; such a sofa as never yet stood in the study of any decent high church clergyman of the Church of England. The old curtains had also given ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... me men dropped plough-handles and women baskets, and as we ran our legs grew numb and our bodies cold at a sound which had haunted us in dreams by night—the war-whoop. The deep and guttural song of it rose and fell with a horrid fierceness. An agonized voice was in my ears, and I halted, ashamed. It ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... yet visited and whose beauty will while away the heavy time—I have many lovely spots under my command which poets of old have visited and have seen those sights the relation of which has been as a revelation to the world—many spots I have still in keeping of lovely fields or horrid rocks peopled by the beautiful or the tremendous which I keep in reserve for my future worshippers—to one of those whose grim terrors frightened sleep from the eye I formerly led you[91] but you now need more pleasing images & although I will not promise ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... here," this young lady wrote home. "She hasn't read any book that isn't a thousand years old. One of the girls says she wears a trilobite for a breastpin; some horrid old stone, I believe that is, that was a bug ever so long ago. Her name, she says, is Myrtle Hazard, but I call her Rip ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... also that she could do nothing better than shut herself up and cry for you, or else burn herself. But she would think differently. She'd probably wear one of those horrid she-helmets, because she'd want the courage not to do so; but she'd wear it with a heart longing for the time when she might be allowed to throw it off. I hate such shallow false pretences. For my part, I would let the world say what it pleased, and show no grief ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... is impossible to manage such a wash as three clean napkins a day entail, napkin rings are probably necessary. In most moderately run houses, a napkin that is unrumpled and spotless after a meal, is put aside and used again for breakfast; but to be given a napkin that is not perfectly clean is a horrid thought. Perhaps though, the necessity for napkin rings results in the achievement of the immaculate napkin—which is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... chained their daughter to a rock for the sea-monster to devour; but Perseus, swift with the winged sandals of Mercury, terrible with his avenging sword, and invincible with the severed head of Medusa, whose horrid aspect of snaky hair and scaly body turned to stone every beholder, rescues the maiden from chains, and leads her away by the bands of love. Nothing could be more poetical than the life of Perseus. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... conquer the Saxons, and Charlemagne used the requisite means. Sometimes the harshest measures will most speedily effect the end. Did our fathers ever dream of compromise with treacherous and hostile Indians? War has a horrid maxim,—that "nothing is so successful as success." Charlemagne, at last, was successful. The Saxons were so completely subdued at the end of thirty-three years, that they never molested civilized ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... like a sybil, Lazy, languorous and warm. I am unambitious, flaccid, Well content to drowse and dream: How I hate life's bitter acid— Leave me here to stew and steam. Underneath this jet so torrid I forget the world's sad wrath: O activity is horrid! Leave ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... of life coming through the trees in advance of me—the sounds of men shouting and yelling in excitement; the noise of dogs barking and yelping; and through it and above it all, clearer and clearer heard as I run hastily forward, the horrid hoarse "hough-hough"—that sound so hollow and booming as heard in the "echoing woods,"—with the sharper metallic clashing of savage jaws, that I know can only proceed from some ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... down the paper, "Mrs. Falconer has accomplished that match at last, and has got one of her daughters well off her hands—the ugly one too. Upon my word, she is amazingly clever. But, after all, the man has a horrid temper, and a very bad character. Now it is over, my dear Caroline, I must tell you, that long ago, before I was so well aware of what sort of a man he was, I had formed the plan of marrying him to you, and so uniting the two branches, and bringing the estate ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... girl; "I call it the first. I have half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone." And for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... hate all descriptions of low life. Hence my account of the society in which I at present found myself must of necessity be short; and, indeed, the recollection of it is profoundly disagreeable to me. Pah! the reminiscences of the horrid black-hole of a place in which we soldiers were confined; of the wretched creatures with whom I was now forced to keep company; of the ploughmen, poachers, pickpockets, who had taken refuge from poverty, or ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... listened to these terrible words, and scarcely had the latter sufficient courage to inform her unpitying husband of their child's engagement with Herbert Hamilton. For Mary's sake, she struggled and spoke, but her fears were not without foundation. A horrid imprecation on Mr. Hamilton and his family burst instantly from the lips of the now infuriated Greville; he had chosen for many years to fancy himself deeply injured by that gentleman, and, with ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... and declined, but this one was evidently in earnest, and the consideration of the captain decided Honora on accepting it, but not without much murmuring from Lucilla. Caroline and Horatia were detestable grown-up young ladies, her aunt was horrid, Castle Blanch was the slowest place in the world; she should be shut up in some abominable school-room to do fancy-work, and never to get a bit of fun. Even the being reminded of Wrapworth and its associations only made her ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tone of quiet worldliness was thus broken, here and there, by horrid scandals, in other places it was conspicuously relieved by splendid instances of piety and self-devotion, such as George Eliot drew in the character of Edgar Tryan of Milby. But the innovating clergy of the Evangelical persuasion had to force their way through "the teeth of clenched ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... a goose or turkey or hen, or a part of a bullock or sheep or goat, he might, according to his creed, be eating the temporary organism of his grandmother. The poet Pope wrote in the true Brahminical spirit, when he said,—"Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with cries of creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... a story trumped up to rid the one of my importunities, and give the other a recommendation to me, which, it seems, he desired, upon seeing me at the house of my seducer. Reduced to this extremity, I cursed my own simplicity, uttered horrid imprecations against the treachery of Horatio; and, as I became every day more and more familiarised to the loss of innocence, resolved to be revenged on the sex in general, by practising their own arts upon themselves. Nor was an opportunity ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... devoutly. It has raised an antipathy, that no temporal interest could ever do, and entailed on us a mutual hatred to all eternity. And savage zeal, with meek and pious semblance, works dreadful massacre; and for heaven's sake (horrid pretence) makes desolate the earth.' And further, Shaftesbury observes, 'The Jupiter of Strangers, was, among the ancients, one of the solemn characters of divinity, the peculiar attribute of the supreme ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... copperplate. A plague upon their heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the balcony before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? An Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was shed,—the first that the British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our countrymen,—we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they make it reek anew from among the stones in King Street. The pool that we saw that night has ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... We ate calves' brains for dinner, and what I'm sure were frogs' legs with mushrooms. You know we vowed we wouldn't touch their horrid messes, but I really begin to like them,' confessed Mat, who had pronounced every dish ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... but, either not possessing the jockey's accuracy of aim, or reckless of consequences, he flung his bottle so that it struck against part of the wooden setting of the panes, breaking along with the wood and itself three or four panes to pieces. The crash was horrid, and wine and particles of glass flew back into the room, to the no small danger of its inmates. "What do you think of that?" said the jockey; "were you ever so honoured before?" "Honoured!" said I. "God preserve me in future from such honour;" and I put my finger to my cheek, which ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... day I had a troop of fellows at my heels, laughing like mad; and what do you think?—when I doffed my shooting jacket, I found some wag had stuck the top of a printed placard on my back, with the horrid ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... something for you to eat and drink, first, if you're tired and hungry. You must be both, poor child—poor, pretty child! You are pretty—lovely. No wonder Maieddine—but what will you have. Which among our horrid Eastern ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... they had achieved a height of over 6,000 feet, and by that time the sledges were in such a parlous state that Scott had all of them unpacked and the runners turned up for inspection. Horrid revelations followed; one sledge remained sound, and Scott promptly decided that there was one course and only one to take, and that was to return to the ship as fast as they could. Had two sledges been available the advance ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... forward; though I abandon it, 'twill advance; it is already too far to put a stop to it; and now I am entered, it is in vain to retreat; if we are prosperous, it will to all ages be called a glorious enterprise; but if we fail, it will be base, horrid and infamous; for the world judges of nothing but by the success; that cause is always good that is prosperous, that is ill which is unsuccessful. Should I now retreat, I run many hazards; but to go on I run but one; by ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... am so pleased to see you—and so sorry!" burst out Sibylla, as she clasped the skipper's hand and gazed tearfully into his care-worn face. "How you must have suffered all this cruel time, pent up there in that horrid, horrid place! Do you know, I have tried, oh, ever so many times, to get permission to go and sit with you and cheer you up a bit, but those dreadful wretches would not allow it; and at last Ned—that is—I ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... legal obstacles to their emancipation, and in the meanwhile his old age was come, and he was about to die. He pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to market, and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring imagination into phrensy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the anguish of despair, and he made me feel how awful is the retribution of Nature upon those who ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... gives but he watches; and we got a new servant the other day, and devil a thing she is but a spy from Sir Robert Whitecraft, and some people say that her master and she forgot the Gospel between them. Indeed I believe that's pretty well known; and isn't he a horrid villain to send such a vagabone to attend and be about the very woman that he expects to be ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... to sleep; I don't see how Jack's mother could send me anything when I've half killed him. I want to be cold and ache and have horrid things done to me. Oh, if I ever get out of this bed I'll be the best girl in the world, to pay for this. See if I ain't!" and Jill gave such a decided nod that her tears flew all about the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... appropriate Scriptural quotation. Our bleeding heart was nowhere in the present procession, which apparently could take care of itself, for we had returned in thought to the July funeral of the veld and its horrid characteristics; and a pleasant reaction set in when we recalled a verse of Matthew which says: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... the past, which seemed to be forever lost, and present humiliation, could not long suppress the anxious thought and question, "What now?" The discussion of the question brought relief from the horrid feeling of vacuity which oppressed the soldier and introduced him to the new sensations of liberty of choice, freedom of action—full responsibility. For capital he had a clear conscience, a brave heart, health, strength, and a good record. With these ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... island of Ceylon, cock-fighting is carried to a great height. The Sumatrans are addicted to the use of dice. A strong spirit of play characterizes the Malayan. After having resigned every thing to the good fortune of the winner, he is reduced to a horrid state of desperation. He then loosens a certain lock of hair, which indicates war and destruction to all he meets. He intoxicates himself with opium, and working himself to a fit of frenzy, he bites and kills every one, who comes in ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... she does not wail and tear her hair and faint she popularly is supposed to be a flinty, cigarette-smoking creature who rampages up and down the land, seeking whom she may rend with her pen and gazing, dry-eyed, upon scenes of horrid bloodshed." ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... company as a cat; but the beetles are there, and a girl of powerful imagination may possibly come to regard them as eligible pets. Then the food—the breakfast of weak tea and scanty bread; the mid-day meal of horrid scraps measured out with eager care to the due starvation limit; the tasteless, dreadful "tea" once more at six o'clock, and the bread and water for supper! And the incessant scold, scold, scold, the cunning inquiries after missing morsels of meat or potatoes, the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. "Perhaps she hasn't had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate that she must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her husband if she likes, but she needn't bring you. I shall see plenty of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... simply horrid, that's what you are!" declared the stylishly-dressed student, in despair. "And my books are all ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... floor he saw the two forms near the bed moving about like shadows: two red objects that resembled dancing telegraph poles leaped past him from he knew not where, and then there was a shout, the report of a pistol, a horrid yell. Something heavy crashed down beside him and writhed. His eyes were closing, his senses were going, he was numb and sleepy. Away off in the distance he heard Harry ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... obliged to declare himself, and he did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a few months of his appointment, he firmly repudiated the Tractarians. But the repudiation was not deemed sufficient, and a year later he repeated it with greater emphasis. Still, however, the horrid rumours were afloat. The "Record" began to investigate matters, and its vigilance was soon rewarded by an alarming discovery: the sacrament had been administered in Chichester Cathedral on a weekday, and 'Archdeacon Manning, one of the most ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... gave me turn enough, and when I got away from him to try and catch Breezy here, another savage brute hunted me and nearly struck me down. Oh, it was horrid!" he cried, as he ended his rough narrative of what he ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... and Variety of Superstition—The Belief in Witchcraft the most horrid Form of Superstition—Most flourishing in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries—The Sentiments of Addison, Blackstone, and the Lawyers of the Eighteenth Century upon the Subject—Chaldean and Persian ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... would do, but you mustn't play that sort of game with a good woman." She burst out laughing. "For a man you're a precious fool! I don't think I want to see you again. You don't improve. You're full of horrid impulses." Her indignation came back. "How dare you put your ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... well up aloft was full of water, and it was pouring in torrents through the little window. It had gone through the floor of the bedroom and into the dining-room, pulling down with it about half the ceiling, which lay in a horrid mess upon the dining table and the carpet, George saw in an instant what was the matter. He ran up the steps to the well, pulled out a quantity of straw and dirt which blocked up the entrance to the pipe; the water ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... of it is, I believe it is true, what they said. I am ignorant and silly. I hate going out to parties; I never feel at ease, I make foolish mistakes. Owen has been very kind, he has only laughed, but it must have been horrid for him to have such a foolish wife. At home, too ... it's quite true I haven't helped him. I've been out all day enjoying myself, and not bothering about his work. I did at first, and I made such stupid blunders that he used to have to do it ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... story goes, the Goddess relenting at her hard fate, substituted a deer in her stead, and conveyed her away to serve her as a Priestess. It must be farther remarked that Menelaus was the Virgin's uncle, and Calchas the Priest who was to officiate at this horrid sacrifice.] could see that Chalcas should appear greatly concerned, Ulysses still more so, and Menelaus bathed in tears, but that the head of Agamemnon (the virgin's father) should be covered with his robe, to intimate ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... have preferred New South Wales, so completely was I influenced by the prevailing prejudice against that land of barbarism. Many people despise Ireland, who, if you demand a reason, will tell you it is a horrid place, and the people all savages; but if you press for proofs and illustrations, furthermore such ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth



Words linked to "Horrid" :   outrageous, horridness, horrific, bad



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